26. Uada - 'Dijnn'

Yet more Black Metal and yet another band intent in stretching its boundaries and borders as far as they can push them. I can hear the Nordic purists in the mum’s spare rooms rattling their bullet belts as I write, crying “Not kvlt”. The simple fact is that it has very little to do and in common with the music that the Norwegian founding fathers created in the early nineties. There are traces of the same DNA, but what Uada have forged is much more melodic, much more cerebral and just sounds utterly divine.

The signwriting here is taken incredibly seriously. It is not a case of how nasty or repulsive you can make a track, instead this is a sumptuous sounding epic and anthemic album that revels in lush production and a harmonious backbone. It feels big, slick, inventive and most importantly ambitious. This is Black Metal reinvented as something far more than a cult concern for socially inept Scandinavians. This is an album that, whisper it, wants to be commercially successful. That wants to take on the world and that wants to be heard by the majority. It’s also bloody brilliant.